Great Deeds and Failure
by Laura Andrews
Summary: Did claiming the Ring at Mount Doom make Frodo less of a hero?


Frodo was unused to cities of stone; and though Minas Tirith was fair, and though she filled him with wonder, more and more he began to long for the green hills and fresh, open air of the Shire. It had been so long since he had had a place to call home; it felt at times, as he walked the maze of streets in the great city, often losing his way, that he was doomed to wander forever.

"Soon," Gandalf had said. But Frodo's heart sank every time he met someone on the street whom he did not know. Their eyes would widen, and, if they realized that he was the Frodo, the Ringbearer, they might go down on one knee as he passed. Some children would ask to see his wounded hand. Complete strangers offered him expensive silks and jewels; he had even been given a purebred horse.

But it was so uncomfortable. The stares, the sharp intakes of breath, the bows and the thanks and the gifts. He was only Frodo, a simple hobbit. He had taken the Ring to Mount Doom, but if there had been someone else who could have done it, he would gladly have handed over the task; indeed he had tried, more than once.

I will take the Ring to Mordor. What a strange thing it was to look back at his words, spoken half in fear and half in blind, stubborn determination. Nothing had prepared him for the reality of doing the task. The last weeks, when he and Sam had escaped from the orc hold and stumbled through the barren, pitiless land, were etched forever in his mind. Mordor meant something now that it had not meant when he stood forth in the council and claimed the task. Then, it had meant a land far away of which he knew only vague rumors; now, it was the place through which he had struggled, starved, thirsted, and, in the end, failed.

Perhaps that was the worst of it. He had failed. He had come to the brink, had raised the Ring above the fire, and … he had thrown aside all of his labor, all of Sam's labor, all the lives of all the free people of Middle Earth.

Yes, it had been the Ring. But somewhere in his mind it had claimed a hold; somewhere within him there was a desire for domination, for power beyond his lot or stature. He had resisted it, all the way, until the very end, and there, when the real test came, he had fallen before it.

Frodo, lord of Middle Earth. Destroyer of Sauron. I will make all this wasteland as if it had never been; I will wash it away beneath the sea. I will rule with benevolence and with justice.

It had come into his mind a thousand times as he journeyed; but he had never intended to give in. The task had always been to destroy the Ring, and he had never wavered from that goal. Or had he? The Ring had deceived him; had deceived him in spite of all that he knew about it, in spite of everything he had been told and everything he had learned by his long acquaintance with it.

It had brought him to Mount Doom. It had ensnared him at the last with promises of power and it had all been so that Sauron might regain the Ring.

The thing that had stopped it, the only thing, was Gollum; the Ring had worked its own doom. Frodo shuddered to think of Sam so nearly killing Gollum. The fate of the world had not hung on his shoulders, but on the persistence of Gollum's tortured mind. If Gollum had not pursued them to the end, then the end would have been so terrible that he could not bear to think of it.

He told none of this to his friends. Merry and Pippin basked in the praise that men gave them; Sam went around singing Frodo of the Nine Fingers, not abashed when he came to one of his own parts, and sometimes he would burst into tears of joy if he or Frodo were recognized. But they had nothing to be ashamed of.

He walked the back ways more frequently, and one day he found a small, walled garden. It was attached to a dilapidated house; the windows were broken and the door hung crookedly on one hinge. He knew that he would have been welcome in any garden, but he did not wish to intrude or to be noticed. He went in. It had gone wild; he guessed that it had not been tended for a year at least.

Beneath an ivied arch sat a stone bench. He cleared off the old leaves, sat, and leaned back, closing his eyes. A soft breeze ruffled his hair.

Here, even if he could not be at peace in his mind, at least his body could rest. Here he was safe for a few hours from prying eyes.

He had come to the garden for several days in a row; as yet he had never stayed long enough to worry his friends, but today he did not want to leave. A deep malaise overcame him. He sat on the stone bench and looked up at the green leaves against a sky of vivid blue.

The last thing he had expected was to open his eyes and find that he had been asleep for hours; the sun was westering, and the sky was tinged with fire.

A sound, soft and unexpected, startled him, and he found that someone was seated beside him on the bench.

It was Galadriel.

She was looking at him with a gaze steady and full of compassion.

"My lady," he stammered, and half rose before she stayed him with her hand.

She was clad in a soft, silvery-grey, and Frodo unexpectedly found that he and she were in some strange way, equals. The lofty queen was gone, and in her place was a friend.

"How long have you been here?" he asked.

"An hour or more," she said.

There was silence, and in the silence there was a strange kinship.

"Tell me what is troubling you, Frodo," she said. "I cannot here, as in my own land, read clearly the thoughts of those before me, not without leave; but I can see that there is an unrest in your mind, and I would help you if I could."

He took a deep breath and looked down. "I failed; I claimed the Ring. But everyone … in Minas Tirith …" he trailed off.

She said nothing, and for a horrible moment he thought, She did not know. Now she knows. Now she knows.

He looked up, and saw that she was regarding him with a deep thoughtfulness. Her mouth curved in the barest hint of a smile.

"Frodo," she said at last. "Do you think that you are the only one with regrets? With guilt?"

"No," he said, and a lump rose in his throat. "No, I did not speak to you so that you could … pity me, or excuse me." He did not know why he had spoken at all.

"I told you that your quest stood on the edge of a knife," she said. "I saw somewhat of Boromir's desire for the Ring, but when I searched his thought I saw also that he was a man honest and steadfast, and that while all the company was loyal to you he, too, would remain true. But I also spoke to you. Yours was the burden, and I knew that upon you the Ring would work its utmost, to deceive, to ensnare. I feared for you, Frodo. I knew nothing of hobbits then, save what I had learned from Gandalf; I saw only you, alone, with the Ring of the Great Deceiver in your hand.

"When you stood by the Mirror and held out the Ring, and offered it to me, I saw in you then what others had seen before: a trueness of heart and soul that even the great and the wise did not possess. Whether you could have placed it in my hand or no, the mere offering was more than enough to convince me that you, and you alone, were chosen for this quest.

It was not chance that brought it to Bilbo, nor was it chance that he gave it to you. Of all the peoples in Middle Earth, elves, men, dwarves, to none of them was it committed. And I knew in my heart that if anyone could throw this thing in the fire, if any had the strength of will even to reach Orodruin, then it was you.

A slender thread of hope? Perhaps. But I have lived long, and I have known lesser hopes to prevail. And I do not believe in chance; the world is ordered, and each choice, rash or foolish or valiant or cowardly, leads to the appointed end."

Frodo shook his head. "But I so nearly destroyed all our hopes. I did destroy them; if not in deed, then only because I was stopped."

"And do you wonder at that? Did not the Ring work upon you every hour of every day, from the moment you first held it? You may not have possessed it as long as Bilbo did, but you bore it through greater peril. And as it came nearer to the place of its birth, it grappled with you, and strove with your mind. It is no small thing that, in spite of your weariness, your thirst, and your hunger, you never gave in until at the very last, when the Ring was at its most powerful and you were at your weakest.

Indeed, Frodo, of all the great heroes that I have known, of men and of elves, I believe that not one, saving Beren perhaps, could have done as well. Of all the great deeds that have been done, yours sets you in the company of the greatest. For you intended until the very last to throw the Ring into the fire, and yourself with it if you must. But there in Sammath Naur it exerted all its power, for it knew your mind and saw that you were determined to destroy it there. You, a mere halfling; you, a weakling; and yet you, Frodo Baggins, set fear in the heart of the great work of Sauron's hand."

She smiled at him, and he suddenly realized that tears were streaming down his cheeks. He had never seen himself so before; in his own mind, he had always been weak, perhaps even cowardly. But for a moment, as she spoke, he saw himself as others saw him; yet without any conceit or arrogance. And though the vision passed, his heart had grown lighter.

"The Ring is destroyed," Galadriel said. "Do not let it burden you still."

"I fear I will never be free of it completely," he said. "But your words have eased my mind."

"I am glad," she said. "And do not despair; though it may be long before we find complete rest, all hurts and sorrows have their cure at last. I think you will find yours ere long."

She rose, and the setting sun shone behind her so that her hair flamed in sudden gold and a light seemed to shine from her very form. She held out her hand to Frodo, and the ring that she bore shone with a clear radiance like sun on the water. Around them the trees put forth buds and blossoms, and the faded green grew bright and vivid. The dead ivy that curled around the trunks and the bench came to life and shot out new leaves.

Frodo took her hand, and together they left the garden.


End file.
